Praying to Mary - A Biblical Defense

amariselle said:

I think you should take an honest look at history. Not only the parts you like or agree with.

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Seems like, my dear friend, that you only take the parts that fit in with your dislike of all things Catholic.

Goatee said:

Seems like, my dear friend, that you only take the parts that fit in with your dislike of all things Catholic.

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I've read a lot actually, mostly from official Catholic sources.

amariselle said:

I've read a lot actually, mostly from official Catholic sources.

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Then it is very obvious that you did not understand what you were reading!

PeaceB said:

The Church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. What it binds on Earth is bound in Heaven, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The personal opinions of Amariselle, not so much.

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The following verse concerning the binding on earth and heaven is followed up by a location of two on earth (more specifically)

Mat 18:19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

PeaceB said:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”

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Indeed incense is shown as prayer even as it was here

Psalm 141:2 Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

First lets back up the truck a bit {BEEP, BEEP, BEEP}. I think you are attributing perhaps arguments from others and 'thinking' them to me. So let's examine your claims.

kepha31 said:

Are you saying Mary did not do the will of God when she said, "Be it done unto me according to thy word"??? Luke 1:38.

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I never made that statement so please stop putting words in my mouth. What you quote above has nothing to do with the passage in Matthew where the crowd tells Jesus His kin are present and want to speak with Him. The quote from Luke 1:38 is of a contrite and faithful Blessed Mary who surrenders to the will to God. Indeed that is to be emulated and followed.

kepha31 said:

We are all like Mary when we do the will of God as she did.

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Of course where the Blessed Mary of the Bible is concerned. Not the demi-goddess status some proclaim her to be. And I will note, we have a laundry list of examples of Great Faith recorded for us to follow, unfortunately, in these verses Blessed Mary is not mentioned:

Hebrews 11

kepha31 said:

Jesus is not denigrating His mother by dragging her down to the level of those who so not do the will of God.

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The text nor I made that claim. You projected it upon me. Jesus claimed those who do the Father's will are His brothers and mother. There is nothing more to read into the text. However, you did read into the text and attributed Jesus as pointing out His earthly family were examples He was uplifting. The text makes no mention of this, nor does the text allude to this. So we have to take it at face value Jesus was comparing the spiritual relationship above the earthly bonds we have. Which support His other teachings as well (Luke 14:26; Luke 18:28-30).

kepha31 said:

No. He is building up all those who do the will of God, using His mother (and brothers) as an example. That's the point of Marian devotion you refuse to understand.

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Again, Jesus does not make this point at all. In fact, He is making the point about what He was teaching (Parable of the soils, Parable of Revealed Light). To make the leap that Jesus was pointing out to the crowd His entire earthly family was the example of what He spoke of is reading into the text. As I already pointed out His own earthly brothers did not believe in Him (John 7:5).
Marian devotion is nowhere to be found in the New Testament. At least the type of Marian devotion as seen in the two self proclaimed One True Churches (West and East). If you mean the people who walked the earth with Blessed Mary and respected her, loved her and looked after her when Jesus ascended into Heaven, that is found in the NT.

Everything else from "co-redemptrix, mediatrix and advocate" were terms added well after the 6th century and some as recent as the 19th-20th century and are doctrinal developments of the Roman magisterium.

kepha31 said:

Your "brothers" argument to prove Jesus had siblings has been refuted 50 times on this thread. Jesus is not talking about non-existing siblings but YOU, ME, AND CERTAIN CLOSE RELATIVES as "brothers". If you are a "brother in the Lord" does that make you a biological brother of Jesus? The question is as absurd as your phony evidence.

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Well I did not even turn over this rock. However, as I pointed out in John 7:5, Jesus' own earthly brothers did not believe in Him, therefore He would not be pointing them out as 'spiritual brothers.' Let's look at Mark's account of the encounter with family:

Mark 3: NKJV
31 Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. 32 And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”

33 But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” 34 And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.”

Notice the bolded blue underlined. In Mark's Gospel account, Jesus points to those sitting 'about Him.' Not His earthly family 'outside seeking' Him.

kepha31 said:

The term “brother” is used in the Gospels because these particular men were known BY THIS TITLE in the early Church. I give you: 1 Corinthians 9:4-5, in which Paul is defending his right to be called an apostle:

“Do we not have the right to take along a Christian wife, as do the rest of the apostles, AND THE BROTHERS OF THE LORD, and Kephas (i.e., Peter)?”

Since Paul is writing to Corinthians: citizens of a city in far off Greece, it is obvious that the distinguishing TITLE of “brother” was well known to the universal Church, a Church which also knew very well what the title meant.

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As I pointed out, the men referred to as 'brothers' in the "Jesus’ Mother and Brothers Send for Him" Gospel accounts are also referred to not believing in Him (John 7:5). So the 'brother in Christ' reference to post resurrection NT church use is not the context here. And as I note above, Jesus is pointing out those who are around Him listening to Him preach (Mark 3:34). Not His earthly family still outside wanting to come in and see Him.

With that option (Jesus' stated 'brothers' in Mark 3 as 'spiritual brothers') removed what you have left is wresting the Greek to make 'brother' mean just 'kin' or 'cousin' even though the Latin Vulgate translates the Greek as "fratres." Seems Jerome got it right.

kepha31 said:

You refuse to accept what it meant.
Jesus Brothers and Mary's Perpetual Virginity -- Catholic Apologetics, Philosophy, Spirituality

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I refuse to wrest the Holy Scriptures to conform to a much later doctrinal development.

PeaceB said:

No. I provided Scripture in support of my position. She rejects my conclusions. She provided Scripture in support of her position, and I rejected her conclusions. The only difference is that I do not equate my own personal interpretations of Scripture with the inspired Word of God itself, and can therefore accept the fact that others interpret Scripture differently than I do. For all practical purposes she seems to believe that her interpretations are equal to the Word of God, and that is likely why she cannot accept the fact that we do not bow down and treat her conclusions as though they are Scripture.

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Thanks. I guess I have some catching up to do to understand the context of the conversation you two were having.

Goatee said:

Then it is very obvious that you did not understand what you were reading!

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You can question my intellectual ability all day long if you like. That's fine.

Mary is truly the Mother of the risen Lord. She is truly the Holy Tabernacle. She is truly Our Holy Mother as given to us at the foot of the cross.

Many documented miracles gave been attributed to Mary, and to many Saints. Only God can grant these miracles. The Holy Rosery is very powerful. As St Padre Pio once said, it is his weapon against evil / Satan.

People go on about how they cannot find any Biblical evidence for what the CATHOLICS teach about Mary or the Saints. I say, it is there! Plus, we have Apostolic Tradition. Teachings brought down through Holy Tradition as given by the Apostles who heard all of Jesus teachings, of which, not enough books in the world could contain!

kepha31 said:

I was not aware that archangels appear to "all who have entered his salvation" and announce to each believer they will give birth to the Messiah. There is no need to invent a false dichotomy, all are blessed. We have the audacity to believe that Jesus'mother played a required role in God's plan of salvation, meaning she is blessed among all women, and of course, Full of Grace.

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We know scripture shows Mary saying,

Luke 1:48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden:
for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

And so from henceforth it begins, showing so much a little further

Luke 11:27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things,
a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice,
and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.

Jesus then responds to this, to her words changing the singular into the plural here also

Luke 11:28 But he said,
Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

So Mary says" from henceforth all generations" shall call ME (singularly) blessed as it was her womb that bare Jesus Christ just as it was her paps which did give him suck (and it was of the same that "certain woman" (which started from "henceforth" did bless).

But Jesus didn't respond back with an Amen to that, or saying, "You said it sista'! And His word Trump's as it says, But he said, Yea rather blessed are THEY (plurally speaking) that hear the word of God, and keep it.

Christ formed in THEM (not after the flesh in one/singularly so) but after the Spirit (Plurally so) which are His body (the two becoming one flesh according to the mystery) as Paul speaks of it.

Jesus does appear to divert the woman's attention from lifting up her voice of adoration in respects to the singular vessel (as Mary was)) which brought him forth and calling her womb/paps (in relation to him) blessed (in a singular sense of things). But again, Jesus responded, "Yea rather blessed are" They" (in the plural sense) that hear the word of God and keep it.

Sounds as if the certain woman's focus was off.

Could be womb worship there.

Elizabeth was more right on with her declaration seeing, "The LORD saith to MY Lord sit at my right hand"

Luke 1:42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

Luke 1:43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Goatee said:

These arguments keep popping up continuously on these forums.

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As are one line diatribes in 'response' to scholarship.

Goatee said:

CATHOLICS give the correct answers but still you get the Sola Scripture brigade thinking only they are correct!

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Of course and the usual "correct answer" is "We are Rome and are self assured of every point we make because we say so---Don't agree see our Magisterium."

Who used SS to refute the notion all Catholic traditions had ancient roots? I used your own Roman Catholic scholars to refute the RC claim here on CF:

redleghunter said:

Cardinal John Henry Newman had the following to say to justify Roman Catholic tradition not found in the NT nor even in the early church. Newman actually gives quite a very good visual of the religious syncretism many Catholics argue here on CF has roots in the NT. Newman makes it clear the history is against such notions.

"We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}

Greeks dedicate images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of devils." [Note 18] Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the {377} names of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are painted ... (John Henry Newman [made a cardinal by Pope Leo III in 1879]; Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power, Chapter 8; Newman Reader - Development of Christian Doctrine - Chapter 8)

As Roman Catholic historian Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger points out more in this doctrinal development of tradition. Some based on spurious or false documents as in the Isidorian decretals:

In the middle of the ninth century—about 845—there arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals...About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon Pope Nicholas I at Rome, to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors.

That the pseudo–Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole constitution of the Church, and introduced a new system in place of the old—on that point there can be no controversy among candid historians.

The most potent instrument of the new Papal system was Gratian’s Decretum, which issued about the middle of the twelfth century from the first school of Law in Europe, the juristic teacher of the whole of Western Christendom, Bologna. In this work the Isidorian forgeries were combined with those of the other Gregorian (Gregory VII) writers...and with Gratia’s own additions. His work displaced all the older collections of canon law, and became the manual and repertory, not for canonists only, but for the scholastic theologians, who, for the most part, derived all their knowledge of Fathers and Councils from it. No book has ever come near it in its influence in the Church, although there is scarcely another so chokeful of gross errors, both intentional and unintentional. — (Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870), pp. 76-77, 79, 115-116. The Pope and the Council : Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von, 1799-1890 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive)

Perhaps the above from Roman Catholic historians (one a Cardinal) should give you an indication why some Protestants and Evangelicals challenge the claim Roman Catholic traditions as "apostolic."

I do thank Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning for his candor with the following:

"It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour." — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, pp. 227,28) (The temporal mission of the Holy Ghost : or, Reason and revelation : Manning, Henry Edward, 1808-1892 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive)

Cardinal Newman had a similar theme when discussing tradition from antiquity:

"in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council

Notice I am not giving a drive by from "Mystery Babylon" junk theology. I quoted prominent Roman Catholic theologians two of which were Cardinals. The summary of all of the above is Rome does not need the Bible (history), church history or even earlier traditions to justify new traditions. Not only that, but Rome also has the authority to make later developments binding even though the earlier church did not practice them or in some cases even heard of them.

Don't you find that concerning? The only 'place' I can find such self proclaimed and self assured power is in the following quote:

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PeaceB said:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”

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Does the text confirm the prayers are directed towards the 24 elders? No

Are you indicating the use of 'saints' in the text is the Roman Catholic understanding of canonized departed saints?

Who are the 24 elders? What is the significance of the harps the 24 elders each hold? Why are the prayers in golden bowls full of incense?

Goatee said:

Mary is truly the Mother of the risen Lord.

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She is the mother of Christ the man, (that is, His humanity/physical body), not of Christ as God. Jesus, as God, existed "in the beginning" and is the Creator of all things, as Scripture plainly states.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5)

We can see, from the above Scripture, that Jesus, as God, is Mary's Creator, Mary did not create Him or conceive His diety in her womb, as He always existed as God, without beginning or end.

Goatee said:

She is truly the Holy Tabernacle.

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Scripture?

Goatee said:

She is truly Our Holy Mother as given to us at the foot of the cross.

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Scripture?

Goatee said:

Many documented miracles gave been attributed to Mary, and to many Saints. Only God can grant these miracles.

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Really? What about "lying signs and wonders? Or Satan masquerading as an "angel of light"? Or the coming of the "lawless one?"

9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10)

This is why Scripture tells us to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) and Jesus warns many times about deception in the "last days."

Goatee said:

The Holy Rosery is very powerful. As St Padre Pio once said, it is his weapon against evil / Satan.

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Scripture?

Goatee said:

People go on about how they cannot find any Biblical evidence for what the CATHOLICS teach about Mary or the Saints. I say, it is there!

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Why has none been given then?

Goatee said:

Plus, we have Apostolic Tradition. Teachings brought down through Holy Tradition as given by the Apostles who heard all of Jesus teachings, of which, not enough books in the world could contain!

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Yes, that really is what all these teachings are based on. Claims of "Apostolic Tradition".

Personally, I have no problem with tradition. But when it contradicts Scripture, it ceases to be trustworthy.

Goatee said:

People go on about how they cannot find any Biblical evidence for what the CATHOLICS teach about Mary or the Saints. I say, it is there!

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But the problem, my friend, is that none has been given thus far. Every time scripture is sighted as an alleged defense of praying to Mary/saints, it has been shown to have either been grossly taken out of context (Job 5:1) or to have not said what the proponent claims it said (Revelation 5:8). It would be far better for advocates of this practice to simply rest on Sacred Tradition and stop trying to distort scripture. At some point it becomes a credibility issue.

amariselle said:

She is the mother of Christ the man, (that is, His humanity/physical body), not of Christ as God.

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Nestorianism was refuted as heresy in the 5th century, the era of the undivided church.
Nestorians reject the term Theotokos (Giver of birth to God) for the Virgin Mary, using instead the term Christotokos (giver of birth to Christ) or Anthropotokos (giver of birth to a man).

Luke 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

amariselle said:

She is the mother of Christ the man, (that is, His humanity/physical body), not of Christ as God. Jesus, as God, existed "in the beginning" and is the Creator of all things, as Scripture plainly states.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5)

We can see, from the above Scripture, that Jesus, as God, is Mary's Creator, Mary did not create Him or conceive His diety in her womb, as He always existed as God, without beginning or end.



Scripture?



Scripture?



Really? What about "lying signs and wonders? Or Satan masquerading as an "angel of light"? Or the coming of the "lawless one?"

9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10)

This is why Scripture tells us to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) and Jesus warns many times about deception in the "last days."



Scripture?



Why has none been given then?



Yes, that really is what all these teachings are based on. Claims of "Apostolic Tradition".

Personally, I have no problem with tradition. But when it contradicts Scripture, it ceases to be trustworthy.

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You are a Sola Scripture only believer. Nothing outside the Bible is real to you.

FenderTL5 said:

Nestorianism was refuted as heresy in the 5th century, the era of the undivided church.
Nestorians reject the term Theotokos (Giver of birth to God) for the Virgin Mary, using instead the term Christotokos (giver of birth to Christ) or Anthropotokos (giver of birth to a man).

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I don't care what you call it. I quoted Scripture. You selected the very first sentence of my post and discarded the rest. Highly dishonest.

Here, I'll help you out:

amariselle said:

She is the mother of Christ the man, (that is, His humanity/physical body), not of Christ as God. Jesus, as God, existed "in the beginning" and is the Creator of all things, as Scripture plainly states.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 The same was in the beginning with God.

3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:1-5)

We can see, from the above Scripture, that Jesus, as God, is Mary's Creator, Mary did not create Him or conceive His diety in her womb, as He always existed as God, without beginning or end.

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Now, kindly address what I wrote in its entirety before carelessly throwing around labels.

Goatee said:

You are a Sola Scripture only believer. Nothing outside the Bible is real to you.

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Right. That is a gross misrepresentation of what "Sola Scriptura" is and you know it.

redleghunter said:

I did not give a definition of 'tradition.' The use of 'tradition' today by the Catholic church can mean quite a few things. Tradition of 1st century AD? 5th century AD? 11 century AD? You can see someone standing from the 21st century looking back can call everything from the end of 1st century AD through today as 'tradition.'

That is the tradition you are arguing from. Not a supposed list of oral traditions not written down which has become a dual pillar of truth along with Sacred Scriptures. Such was even alien to early church fathers such as St. Irenaeus:

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. (Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 1)--http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103301.htm)

The Scriptures seem to be, according to Irenaeus, synonymous to Tradition.

Now what did I mean about 'tradition' not handed down by the apostles themselves as Irenaeus mentioned was received?

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If it's not handed down by the Apostles then it's not Tradition. Irenaeus has no problem asserting the material sufficiency of Scripture, and neither did any Church Father. That's why using the ECF to support sola scriptura never works. It's the sole or formal sufficiency that is non-existent.

Cardinal John Henry Newman had the following to say to justify Roman Catholic tradition not found in the NT nor even in the early church. Newman actually gives quite a very good visual of the religious syncretism many Catholics argue here on CF has roots in the NT. Newman makes it clear the history is against such notions.

"We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church. {374}

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Newman became a Catholic BECAUSE he studied history. " "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant." Newman’s maxim is not intended to be a "rule" that those Protestants versed in Church history "must" enter the Catholic Church. It is a general observation that Church history argues against Protestantism and that those Protestants who study history deeply many times realize that the Catholic Church is the true Church.

Ultimately, belief in the truth of Catholicism is a gift of faith given by God that must be accepted and acted upon by the recipient in order for the recipient to become Catholic.

Greeks dedicate images to devils, and call them gods; but we to True God Incarnate, and to God's servants and friends, who drive away the troops of devils." [Note 18] Again, "As the holy Fathers overthrew the temples and shrines of the devils, and raised in their places shrines in the {377} names of Saints and we worship them, so also they overthrew the images of the devils, and in their stead raised images of Christ, and God's Mother, and the Saints. And under the Old Covenant, Israel neither raised temples in the name of men, nor was memory of man made a festival; for, as yet, man's nature was under a curse, and death was condemnation, and therefore was lamented, and a corpse was reckoned unclean and he who touched it; but now that the Godhead has been combined with our nature, as some life-giving and saving medicine, our nature has been glorified and is trans-elemented into incorruption. Wherefore the death of Saints is made a feast, and temples are raised to them, and Images are painted ...

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(John Henry Newman [made a cardinal by Pope Leo III in 1879]; Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power, Chapter 8; Newman Reader - Development of Christian Doctrine - Chapter 8)

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You are not being fair here. It goes on to say, " Images are painted ... For the Image is a triumph, and a manifestation, and a monument in memory of the victory of those who have done nobly and excelled, and of the shame of the devils defeated and overthrown."

As Roman Catholic historian Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger points out more in this doctrinal development of tradition. Some based on spurious or false documents as in the Isidorian decretals:

In the middle of the ninth century—about 845—there arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals...About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon Pope Nicholas I at Rome, to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors.

That the pseudo–Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole constitution of the Church, and introduced a new system in place of the old—on that point there can be no controversy among candid historians.

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THAT IS A LIE.
In short, there is no reason to suspect the papacy to be the forgery factory conjured up in the minds of anti-Catholic apologists. If many, including popes, presumed the veracity of the False Decretals for a time, it was because the documents in many respects corresponded to the already long-accepted reality of the primacy and infallibility of the popes. Furthermore, no doctrinal error may be inferred from the fact that False Decretals were quoted by popes, since papal infallibility applies to definitions on faith and morals, not to judgments about the authenticity of documents. The important point is that none of the forgeries served as the basis for a single doctrine regarding the papacy. The doctrines came first, the forgeries long centuries later.
The False Decretals | Catholic Answers

The most potent instrument of the new Papal system was Gratian’s Decretum, which issued about the middle of the twelfth century from the first school of Law in Europe, the juristic teacher of the whole of Western Christendom, Bologna. In this work the Isidorian forgeries were combined with those of the other Gregorian (Gregory VII) writers...and with Gratia’s own additions. His work displaced all the older collections of canon law, and became the manual and repertory, not for canonists only, but for the scholastic theologians, who, for the most part, derived all their knowledge of Fathers and Councils from it. No book has ever come near it in its influence in the Church, although there is scarcely another so chokeful of gross errors, both intentional and unintentional. —

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(Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870), pp. 76-77, 79, 115-116. The Pope and the Council : Döllinger, Johann Joseph Ignaz von, 1799-1890 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive)

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see above

Perhaps the above from Roman Catholic historians (one a Cardinal) should give you an indication why some Protestants and Evangelicals challenge the claim Roman Catholic traditions as "apostolic."

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Catholics have never claimed forgeries as apostolic. That's the job for SuperAnti-Catholic bigots like James White and Willy Webster.

I do thank Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning for his candor with the following:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour." — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, pp. 227,28) (The temporal mission of the Holy Ghost : or,c : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive)

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After trying for over an hour I couldn't find your source. Snippets like that are highly suspicious given your track record in one post. Please provide an accessible link to the source.

Cardinal Newman had a similar theme when discussing tradition from antiquity:
c, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.” 8. The Vatican Council

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"8. The Vatican Council " is meaningless without a link to the official document, and it doesn't appear anywhere in the catechism. All Church documents are available on line and this quote simply isn't found anywhere. Technically, there isn't anything wrong with the quote, IF IT IS UNDERSTOOD. Revelation has declared them by means of individual Protestants which is their legitimate exponent IS NOT BIBLICAL. Here is a link to what Newman wrote on the Inspiration of Scripture:
Newman Reader - On the Inspiration of Scripture

Notice I am not giving a drive by from "Mystery Babylon" junk theology. I quoted prominent Roman Catholic theologians two of which were Cardinals.

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You are quoting from junk theologians who manipulate what Cardinals actually mean. It would take months to sort through that volume of Catholic material and then not seeing the forest for the trees.

The summary of all of the above is Rome does not need the Bible (history), church history or even earlier traditions to justify new traditions. Not only that, but Rome also has the authority to make later developments binding even though the earlier church did not practice them or in some cases even heard of them.

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Psychotic anti-Catholic nonsense.

Don't you find that concerning? The only 'place' I can find such self proclaimed and self assured power is in the following quote:
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

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"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
Written by J.R.R. Tolkien for Lord of the Rings. He also wrote:

"I myself am convinced by the Petrine claims, nor looking around the world does there seem much doubt which (if Christianity is true) is the True Church, the temple of the Spirit dying but living, corrupt but holy, self-reforming and re-arising.

"But for me that Church of which the Pope is the acknowledged head on earth has as chief claim that it is the one that has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament, and given it most honour, and put (as Christ plainly intended) in the prime place.

“'Feed my sheep' was His last charge to St. Peter; and since His words are always first to be understood literally, I suppose them to refer primarily to the Bread of Life. It was against this that the W. European revolt (or Reformation) was really launched—'the blasphemous fable of the Mass'—and faith/works a mere red herring.”
Can be found in Tolkien: Man and Myth, p. 193.

Your anti-Catholicism is a fantasy opposed to a church that doesn't exist.